Event marks Alabama's progress toward equality

Pilgrimage recalls Stand in the Schoolhouse Door

Dr. Sharon Malone, sister of Vivian Malone Jones, speaks during the 13th annual Congressional Civil Rights Pilgrimage sponsored by the Faith & Politics Institute starting at Foster Auditorium on the campus of the University of Alabama on Friday.

Michelle Lepianka Carter | The Tuscaloosa News

By Stephanie TaylorStaff Writer

Published: Saturday, March 2, 2013 at 3:30 a.m.

Last Modified: Friday, March 1, 2013 at 11:06 p.m.

Peggy Wallace Kennedy received a standing ovation from several members of the U.S. Congress at Foster Auditorium on Friday, the same place where her father once stood in the doorway to keep the University of Alabama's first two black students from enrolling.

She was 13 on what she recalled as a hot, humid June 11, 1963, at the family's vacation house at Lake Martin. She sat on a swing and watched her mother, Lurleen Wallace, nervously smoking a cigarette and standing away from her security detail of Alabama State Troopers.

“That day was the end of her hope for a simpler life,” Kennedy said. “It was the beginning of living of our lives beneath the shadow of the schoolhouse door.”

Kennedy's father, former Gov. George Wallace, drew national attention that day,

She said that her father “stood before the nation to argue for a lost cause” that was never mentioned in their home again.

Her account of that day and her call for today's leaders to “condemn the politics of exclusion that run rampant in America” made an impression on U.S. Rep. John Lewis, the Atlanta congressman who was one of the most powerful leaders of the civil rights movement in the South.

“I was wiping my eyes,” he said. “I had tears.”

Kennedy and Dr. Sharon Malone were the speakers at the first stop of the 13th annual Faith & Politics Institute Civil Rights Pilgrimage, chaired by Lewis, who led the “Bloody Sunday” march across Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge. Three buses carrying several members of Congress and a group of around 300 arrived at Foster Auditorium around 11 a.m. Friday. The event wasn't publicized for security reasons.

Visitors entered Foster Auditorium and viewed a display of the famous doors that were removed during renovations to the building in 2011.

“People are moved by it,” said Dan Wolfe, planner and designer for UA. “This event led to the Civil Rights Act and was important not just here, but nationally and internationally.”

Lewis said that the nonviolent protests that happened in Tuscaloosa and across the South led to a “revolution of ideas and a revolution of values” that changed the country.

“This state is a better state. This country is a better country, and we are a better people because of this nonviolent revolution,” he said.

Malone, an obstetrician married to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, said that the trip to the UA campus was the first one she's made without her sister, Vivian Malone, who died in 2005 and was one of the black students Wallace tried to prevent from enrolling at UA in 1963.

She said that her sister decided she wanted to attend the University of Alabama in 1954, after reading a newspaper article about the U.S. Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education ruling that said “separate but equal” schools were unconstitutional. The family, at that time, had lived in Alabama for six generations.

“My sister said if she did not have the right to attend the University of Alabama, then who did?” Sharon Malone said.

She said that as she's grown older, she thinks of her sister's act as a parent would, not the younger sister that she was then. Malone has a daughter who is the same age as Vivian Malone was in 1963.

“I see the coolness and the grace she emanated under pressure,” she said of her sister, who became the first black student to graduate from UA in 1965. Malone told the story of her sister's first day in class.

Every student got up and left when Malone entered the room, but the professor carried on and delivered the lecture to a class of one.

Other women who lived in a dorm with Malone would be friendly in private but wouldn't be seen with her in public, she said. Malone was closely scrutinized during her college career by people hoping to catch her missteps rather than document her success, she said.

UA President Judy Bonner said the University of Alabama now has the second-highest enrollment of black students among the nation's flagship universities — 12.6 percent of the student body are black, compared to an average of 4.7 at other flagship public universities.

“The success of these young men and women who walk out the doors with degrees from the University of Alabama is the greatest legacy that Vivian Malone and John Hood (who also enrolled in 1963) left for future generations.”

<p>Peggy Wallace Kennedy received a standing ovation from several members of the U.S. Congress at Foster Auditorium on Friday, the same place where her father once stood in the doorway to keep the University of Alabama's first two black students from enrolling.</p><p>She was 13 on what she recalled as a hot, humid June 11, 1963, at the family's vacation house at Lake Martin. She sat on a swing and watched her mother, Lurleen Wallace, nervously smoking a cigarette and standing away from her security detail of Alabama State Troopers.</p><p>“That day was the end of her hope for a simpler life,” Kennedy said. “It was the beginning of living of our lives beneath the shadow of the schoolhouse door.”</p><p>Kennedy's father, former Gov. George Wallace, drew national attention that day, </p><p>She said that her father “stood before the nation to argue for a lost cause” that was never mentioned in their home again. </p><p>Her account of that day and her call for today's leaders to “condemn the politics of exclusion that run rampant in America” made an impression on U.S. Rep. John Lewis, the Atlanta congressman who was one of the most powerful leaders of the civil rights movement in the South.</p><p>“I was wiping my eyes,” he said. “I had tears.”</p><p>Kennedy and Dr. Sharon Malone were the speakers at the first stop of the 13th annual Faith & Politics Institute Civil Rights Pilgrimage, chaired by Lewis, who led the “Bloody Sunday” march across Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge. Three buses carrying several members of Congress and a group of around 300 arrived at Foster Auditorium around 11 a.m. Friday. The event wasn't publicized for security reasons.</p><p>U.S. Reps. Spencer Bachus, R-Vestavia Hills; Terri Sewell, D-</p><p>Birmingham; Ann Kirkpatrick, D-Ariz.; Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas; and U.S. Sens. Kay Hagan, D-N.C., House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., and Chris Coons, D-Del., were part of the group.</p><p>Visitors entered Foster Auditorium and viewed a display of the famous doors that were removed during renovations to the building in 2011. </p><p>“People are moved by it,” said Dan Wolfe, planner and designer for UA. “This event led to the Civil Rights Act and was important not just here, but nationally and internationally.”</p><p>Lewis said that the nonviolent protests that happened in Tuscaloosa and across the South led to a “revolution of ideas and a revolution of values” that changed the country.</p><p>“This state is a better state. This country is a better country, and we are a better people because of this nonviolent revolution,” he said.</p><p>Malone, an obstetrician married to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, said that the trip to the UA campus was the first one she's made without her sister, Vivian Malone, who died in 2005 and was one of the black students Wallace tried to prevent from enrolling at UA in 1963.</p><p>She said that her sister decided she wanted to attend the University of Alabama in 1954, after reading a newspaper article about the U.S. Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education ruling that said “separate but equal” schools were unconstitutional. The family, at that time, had lived in Alabama for six generations.</p><p>“My sister said if she did not have the right to attend the University of Alabama, then who did?” Sharon Malone said.</p><p>She said that as she's grown older, she thinks of her sister's act as a parent would, not the younger sister that she was then. Malone has a daughter who is the same age as Vivian Malone was in 1963.</p><p>“I see the coolness and the grace she emanated under pressure,” she said of her sister, who became the first black student to graduate from UA in 1965. Malone told the story of her sister's first day in class.</p><p>Every student got up and left when Malone entered the room, but the professor carried on and delivered the lecture to a class of one.</p><p>Other women who lived in a dorm with Malone would be friendly in private but wouldn't be seen with her in public, she said. Malone was closely scrutinized during her college career by people hoping to catch her missteps rather than document her success, she said. </p><p>UA President Judy Bonner said the University of Alabama now has the second-highest enrollment of black students among the nation's flagship universities — 12.6 percent of the student body are black, compared to an average of 4.7 at other flagship public universities.</p><p>“The success of these young men and women who walk out the doors with degrees from the University of Alabama is the greatest legacy that Vivian Malone and John Hood (who also enrolled in 1963) left for future generations.”</p><p> </p><p>Reach Stephanie Taylor at </p><p>stephanie.taylor@tuscaloosa</p><p>news.com or 205-722-0210.</p>